How do you edit the formatted bibliographic reference if it's not correct?

[LA_J]

I'm a new Bookends user, migrating from Sente after reading lots of good reviews of this program.

I have a question about the auto-formatting of citations, though. In Sente, you can have the program display a sample citation for any record, and you can actually go into the citation window and edit any mistakes in the formatting. I can't figure out how to do that in Bookends.

I see that I can choose my discipline's formatting (MLA) for the citation, and I see that I can click the button that renders that citation for me in the proper format, but the display of that formatted citation does not appear editable in Bookends in the same way it is in Sente.

Here's my problem. On the article information pane, the article title is typed correctly, but in the formatted citation, one word which should be capitalized is rendered in lower case. All I want to do is edit the formatted reference, and I have to imagine there's a way to do that, I just don't know what it is.

Can anyone help with this?

[Jon]

You can't edit the formatted reference, you should edit the text in the reference itself (e.g. in the title field). Then the formatted reference will be regenerated correctly). In situations where the capitalization is made by Bookends (for example, you're outputting the title in Title Case and the capitalization of a proper noun is incorrect), you can add that word to the "do not change" list in preferences and Bookends will leave it as entered. Does that answer your question?

Jon
Sonny Software

[LA_J]

Here's what's displaying in my reference title (the part I can edit):

Ariadne’s Thread: Auto-Bio-graphy, History, and Cortés’ ‘Segunda Carta-Relación’

Here's what's displaying in the un-editable formatted citation pane:

Merrim, Stephanie. “Ariadne’s Thread: Auto-Bio-graphy, History, and Cortés’ ‘segunda Carta-Relación’.” Dispositio 11.28/29 (1986): 57-83.

As you can see, the "segunda" is not getting capitalized in the formatted citation, and no amount of editing in the title of the reference in the editing section will produce the desired change in the formatted citation.

The ability to correct the formatted citation once, the first time, to account for any oddities in the way the program is rendering the citation, seems like an important feature, and it's very easy to do in Sente 6. Is there a reason the formatted citation pane has been rendered un-editable in Bookends? I don't want to have to correct this every time I cite it in a bibliography, and I'm wondering why the capitalization I used in the reference title isn't showing up in the formatted citation.

[Jon]

Sente appears to store the formatted reference in the database for some reason (perhaps it's a speed issue, I don't know). Bookends does not -- it is generated on-the-fly each time you need it (for obvious reasons -- if you change formats, edit any bit of the reference, change output from styled text to, say, BibTeX, etc., the output will change). And Bookends formatting is very, very fast.

Your problem probably probably has something to do with the smart apostrophe in front of the word Segunda and how you've set up your title in the format (Title Case I imagine). I'll have to experiment a bit to see what the problem is. I'll be back in the US tomorrow, and depending on jet lag I'll get to it then or the day after. Please send an email to tech support and we'll follow this up off-forum. In the meantime, try turning off smart quotes in preferences and see if that makes a difference (it may or may not).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

As you can see, the "segunda" is not getting capitalized in the formatted citation, and no amount of editing in the title of the reference in the editing section will produce the desired change in the formatted citation.

This is a bug that has been fixed in the next update (actually, more of an oversight than a bug -- a smart open apostrophe was not being considered). For now you can get around this in several ways (but note that the next update is not far off):

1. Change the smart open apostrophe in front of Segunda to a dumb apostrophe (and let Bookends convert it for you if smart quotes is turned on).

2. Tell Bookends to leave that title as entered by immediately following it in the reference with a comma:

Auto-Bio-graphy, History, and Cortés’ ‘Segunda Carta-Relación’,

3. Turn off Title Case in the format you are using (the titles will be output as entered, which may or may not be correct for all your references -- it is for this one).

Jon
Sonny Software